Power Ranking the 10 Most Brutal College Football Schedules of 2013

Wesley Hitt/Getty ImagesLes Miles and the LSU Tigers will once again play one of the most daunting schedules in the country this fall.

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While college football teams across the nation are getting ready to begin spring practices, fans all over the country are eagerly anticipating the upcoming season since schedules have recently been released.

Schedule strength is always a hot-button issue for the soon-to-be extinct BCS system, and that factor could prove instrumental for a few national title hopefuls this fall.

The SEC—long lauded as the toughest conference throughout the land—will once again prove to serve as a gauntlet for a number of its members.

That is because the league that has claimed the last seven crystal footballs could have as many as five teams projected to be ranked in or near the Top 10 in preseason polls (h/t, Mark Schlabach, ESPN).

But other leagues such as the Pac-12 and the Big 12 have seen title contenders bite the dust when conference and national races reach their boiling point late in the season.

Several teams have more than half of their schedules against teams that reached a bowl in 2012, while others have stretches of consecutive games that appear to be impossible to survive without suffering at least one loss.

9. Notre Dame

Brian Kelly and the Fighting Irish will not have any time to linger over its BCS title game drubbing at the hands of Nick Saban’s Alabama club.

The Irish will have to navigate a national schedule that sees them tackle heavyweights from the Big Ten, Pac-12 and the Big 12.

Kelly will welcome back 14 returning starters, but orchestrating a return trip to a BCS bowl will be a stout test to the strength of the program he’s built in South Bend since he arrived three years ago.

The Gators league schedule is actually tame compared to the road they traveled a year ago en route to an 11-2 campaign.

But Will Muschamp’s club will get a significant boost in its non-conference lineup—with a trip to in-state rival Miami in week 2 adding on to the rivalry with Florida State at season’s end in what should be a pair of slugfests.

The Gators' permanent Western division rival is LSU, and a trip to Baton Rouge plus its neutral-site series with Georgia and a date at South Carolina in late November means that most of its toughest games will come away from the friendly confines of the Swamp.

If Florida hopes to make a run in the SEC, the Gators will need to become road warriors this fall.

7. Washington

Steve Sarkisian's Huskies open the season with a rematch of last season’s Las Vegas Bowl against Boise State.

Consecutive dates in October against likely Top 10 Pac-12 titans Stanford and Oregon are sandwiched by meetings with Arizona and Arizona State—which makes for a grueling four-game stretch in the middle of the season.

The final three games of the season—road trips to UCLA and Oregon State followed by the season-ending Apple Cup rivalry with Washington State—will test the Huskies ability to make a fourth straight bowl appearance.

Paul Rhoads has guided an impressive turnaround since returning to Ames as the Cyclones head coach in 2009.

Iowa State has gone bowling in three of the last four seasons, but 2013 will see them finish the season playing eight bowl teams in their final nine games—with road trips in that stretch against Texas Tech, Baylor, Kansas State, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

That season-ending gauntlet is preceded by tough non-conference tests against in-state rival Iowa and a road trip to face reigning Conference USA champion Tulsa—a team that the Cyclones beat in the 2012 season opener, but fell to in the rematch in the Liberty Bowl.

5. LSU

While the SEC has been criticized for playing soft non-conference schedules due to the brutality of its league slates, one team that has consistently scheduled quality opponents outside of the league is LSU.

Les Miles’ club will continue that trend by facing TCU in the Cowboys Classic to open the season.

Additionally, the Tigers draw SEC Eastern Division favorites Georgia and Florida while facing likely Top 5 clubs in Alabama and Texas A&M in the West.

With heavy attrition from last season’s squad, 2013 could prove to be the biggest challenge for Miles since his arrival in Baton Rouge.

4. Oklahoma

Bob Stoops and the Sooners will head into the fall with a significant number of new faces on the roster and on the sidelines.

Those newcomers will have to gel quickly if Oklahoma hopes to capture its eighth (outright) Big 12 title in school history.

The Sooners will get another crack at Notre Dame when they visit South Bend on Sept. 28, before turning their attention to the league slate.

If they are still in the thick of the conference and national title races by November, three of their last four games will come away from home—with trips to Baylor, Kansas State and Oklahoma State punctuating a schedule that is high on quality opponents and low on cupcakes.